Nope, never used any secondary weapons. That's like a Jedi deciding to use a club when a perfectly good light saber is handy. It just never made sense to me to switch to an inferior weapon and lose the advantage of the Witcher sword skills.

@ Zakhary: PJ pretty much hit everything you really need to know. One thing I will add is about combat. Remember that in whatever view mode you are in, clicking on an enemy initiates an attack. You can do this extremely far away so try to be paitient with clicking the mouse button. When I was beginning I would click on an enemy 2-3 times before Geralt even got close enough to swing, and it would disrupt his attack rhythm. The one click combo fighting takes a while to get used to, but once I started getting the feel for it it's simply superb. Try fighting in OTS camera mode and resist pausing during combat for an exciting challenge. Some encounters with multiple enemies may require switching to Isometric view though.

-- ..& so they take the fiction all out of the Jabberwock & I recognize & accept him as a fact. - Mark Twain, May 30, 1880